


A Pleasant Pastime

by stargatefan_archivist



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-31
Updated: 2008-10-31
Packaged: 2018-12-17 17:09:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11856006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargatefan_archivist/pseuds/stargatefan_archivist
Summary: A little break from routine on an alien world





	A Pleasant Pastime

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Yuma, the archivist: this work was originally archived at [Stargatefan.com](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Stargatefan.com). To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [StargateFan Archive Collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/StargateFan_Archive_Collection).

“Jack…”

“I got this, Daniel. This is one time I know more about alien culture than you do.”

“You didn’t actually look in the food stalls at the market, did you?”

“No, why would I? I’ve got all the equipment, and instructions.”

“Instructions, yes, details, no… Didn’t you wonder why they gave you that sturdy club and a really big metal net?”

“Overkill?”

“Uh, not really...” An eyebrow arched up over Daniel’s glasses.

Jack gave another heave on the heavy, rustic fishing pole and reeled in more of the thick line. He shot a glace at the archeologist who sat at the other end of the boat, looking smug. Jack had a feeling that he’d missed the joke. “Daniel-”

He didn’t have time to finish that thought. As he gave another heave, the creature hooked on his line leapt from the water and into the flat-bottomed boat. It thrashed its long body wildly, snapping vicious teeth, and pierced the leather of Jack’s combat boot before he could react. He grabbed the club and hit the ‘fish’ until it stopped moving. He really liked steel toed boots.

Daniel had his feet up on the bench and his arms wrapped around his knees. He was grinning like a madman.

“Is this why you agreed to come fishing, Daniel? So you could watch fish try to kill me?” Jack cut the line. There was no way he was going to reach between those teeth to take the hook out. He flipped the fish into a wooden barrel near the center of the boat. It was large enough for a couple dozen of the fish. Jack reached into the basket beside him for another hook.

“Pretty much. I also thought you might need some help.”

“Like you were so helpful with that one?”

The grin broadened. “Oh, that was just a little one. I knew you could handle it.”

“A little one. Okay, Daniel, spill.” Jack swung the pole and cast the line out across the water, aiming between clumps of rushes and reeds.

Daniel adjusted his glasses, put on his lecture face, and stretched an arm out, gesturing across the vast, salt water marsh. “Most of the planet is covered with shallow waters like this. There are deeper waters in a few places, and small islands like the one where the Stargate is, but this covers most of the planet.”

“I know that. I was at the briefing.” Jack shot an impatient look at Daniel then turned his attention back to jiggling the line. He sat through this once at the SGC, he didn’t need to hear it again.

“And yet, you seem to have missed the part where I said we could expect the predators on this planet to be sea creatures.”

“Yeah, sea – this is a marsh.”

“Shallow sea, Jack, most of the planet is shallow sea.”

Jack let go of the line and looked at Daniel, his eyebrows high. “So I’m fishing for-”

“Bad things - very bad things.”

“And you let me do this because…”

“You were… determined. I tried to tell you, but…” 

The grin was back. Jack didn’t think Daniel had tried all that hard. To be fair, he had been fairly determined to do something besides taking soil samples with Carter for a third day. He’d argued that fishing would have anthropological value, which made Daniel laugh out loud. “Fine, but if I’m risking my life, you get to clean the fish.” 

“Oh, no! I’m just here as backup – and as an anthropological observer.”

“You never feel the need to observe fishing back home. Why is that?”

“I know all I need to know about the anthropological aspects of bass fishing in Minnesota. This is much more interesting. You were right, Jack. This does have value.” Daniel was trying to look all sciencey and failing miserably. There was a raised eyebrow, and the remnants of that grin giving him away.

Jack caught two more fish in rapid succession. They were the same type as the first one, which really was a little one, and they got them into the boat with no trouble. Daniel turned out to be pretty good with the net and Jack was able to club these before they did any damage to boots or appendages. He cast the line out for a fourth time and waited.

“These things are the main food source, right? How do they prepare them?”

“They cut out the poisonous parts, soak them in brine, and smoke them. That’s another reason I’m not going to clean them. I don’t know enough about which parts are toxic to risk doing it myself. The fishermen agreed to prepare them when we get back, in exchange for some energy bars. Some of the fish should be cleaned and smoked in time for you to take them home. It would be a shame not to get to taste them after all this.”

“I find that I’m not looking forward to that as much as I was. How are these people still alive? That’s rhetorical, Daniel, I know how they’re alive. Observation of the first two hundred people that died trying to eat fish.”

The line pulled tight with a sudden jerk and Jack struggled to pull in his catch. This one had more fight; it was larger than the first three. He reeled in his line a bit at a time. The fish fought him hard all the way. 

This was exciting, although it might be kind of hard to explain the possible damage to Fraiser. “People would pay big bucks for this kind of fishing.” 

“Except for the ‘might kill you’ part… Most people aren’t looking for that in fishing.” Daniel was squinting across the water as though he was trying to identify what was on the line and looking a lot more serious. 

He really was here as backup. That was good, although the need for backup while fishing was weird. When you knew how amazingly boring Daniel found fishing, it was pretty darn nice of him - even if he had anticipated some humor at Jack’s expense.

The fish, or fish-like sea creature, was almost at the boat. They still hadn’t gotten a good look at it, but it was big. Daniel grabbed the net and leaned over the side, holding the net ready. Jack reeled it in the last few feet and Daniel reached out and heaved it into the boat. The fish was big enough that he almost didn’t manage it.

“Holy crap.” Jack got a glimpse of brightly colored spines, particularly vicious ones, on the lashing tail. It was thrashing around so much, it was hard to get a good look, but this one seemed to have two rows of teeth on each jaw. It was twice the size of the other fish, and spilling over the sides of the net. He swung the club at the creature, but missed. It flipped itself around and the sharp spines on the tail swung toward his arm with lightning speed. Jack tried to pull his arm out of the way, but could tell that it wasn’t going to be fast enough.

Daniel must have been ready for this, because his Beretta was in his hand and he was firing – at the fish that was in the air between him and Jack. 

“Daniel! Are you-”

The weapon fired.

“-crazy?” Then Jack realized that he’d seen the characteristic red glow of an intar rather than the muzzle flash of a real gun.

“Not this time.” His mouth tilted in a slight smile and he put the ‘Beretta’ back in its holster. “Sorry, there was no time to explain. Once I realized that we were going fishing, I had General Hammond to send an intar along with the supplies. It’s more convenient than a zat.” 

Daniel’s eyebrows pulled together and he looked at Jack intently. “Those spines are poisonous, Jack. That was too close - we weren’t supposed to come across any of those. The storm last week must have washed some things in from the deeper water. The smaller fish with teeth were kind of funny, and we could deal with it, but this just stopped being funny. Maybe we’ve done enough fishing for today.” 

Jack tried to get his breathing back under control. The spines on the creature had been a worry, but the ‘Beretta’ pointed in his general direction had been way beyond that. “I may have to kill you, Daniel.” He took a deep breath. “I want to have enough for our hosts - the Goa’uld have really ruined that word for me, but what else can we call them, ‘people who let us sleep in their house?' They’ve been feeding us for three days, and if getting the food is this much trouble, I think we’d better replace it. Besides, when you’re not pointing a gun at me, this is the most fun I’ve had in ages.”

There was a worried light in Daniel’s eyes, but he smiled at that, and lifted a hand in resignation. “Better give that fish a smack with the club, Jack. I don’t know if one shot from the intar was enough to kill it.”

Jack gave it a good solid knock - he didn’t want it coming back like a creature from a horror movie, and heaved it out of the net, and into the barrel. He cast the line out again – and waited for a very long time. He was fine with that, it was all part of fishing. Daniel, not so much.

Daniel exhausted all the obvious ways to entertain himself. He made a sketch of the boat. He took notes on the fishing tools. He took pictures of their catch. He put blades of marsh grass between his thumbs and made them whistle. Eventually, he ran out of things to do and stared out across the shallow expanse. 

After a while, he frowned thoughtfully and pursed his lips. “I can’t think of a synonym for host… not referring to a person who offers lodging to guests. The word, used in that context, first appeared in the early 14th century, and has developed a range of meanings, from an animal that hosts parasites, to a computer which hosts files. Of course, to us 'host' refers a being controlled by parasitic adult Goa’uld. Host, used in all these ways, comes from the Latin ‘hospes’, meaning host, guest, or stranger. ‘Hospes’ is also the root of hospitality, hospital and, by way of French, hotel. Interestingly, ‘hospes’ harks back to the Latin word ‘hostis’, meaning stranger, or enemy, which is at the root of host when it means 'multitude'. So host in the innkeeper sense would have originally meant ‘one who shelters strangers.’ 

“Ow. My brain.” Jack leaned forward and banged his head on the side of the boat then narrowed his eyes. “Daniel, you just made me scare away a host of fish. Fishing is a quiet sport - a very quiet sport. I let the whistling go, but no lectures.” 

Daniel looked at him through half closed eyes and opened his mouth to respond. Mercifully, Jack got another bite and Daniel was distracted, saving Jack from being verbally hogtied. After another few minutes, he pulled in one of the fish with teeth. They were about as threatening as pike after the spiny one. 

Daniel caught it in the net and pulled it into the bottom of the boat, but it made a break for it. Jack clubbed it out of the air, and again when it hit the deck. He threw it into the barrel with the others. Jack grinned. This was a hell of a great way to spend the day.

He tossed the line out again, and again, there was a long wait. It was just about time to pack it in. These things didn’t seem to bite in the middle of the day anymore than Earth fish did. 

Daniel was shifting on his bench. He wasn’t sighing yet, or drumming his fingers annoyingly, but he was close. He could sit still for a day or more -- as long as he had something to dig up, or translate, but he was constitutionally incapable of relaxing and doing nothing. That was something Jack really didn’t get. The ‘doing nothing’ was half the point of fishing. Beer was the other half, but not offworld. It was fairly remarkable that Daniel was here, doing nothing voluntarily. Okay, trying to do nothing. He wasn’t complaining, but he was getting very twitchy.

“Daniel, how is it that you find it so hard to just take it easy?”

“I am taking it easy.” Daniel was cleaning his glasses for what must be the fifth time.

“No, you’re pretending to take it easy, and wondering how long you can do it before going nuts.”

“Well, yes…” The glasses went back on.

“You don’t get all wigged out when we’re locked up in cells and stuck in space ships, but a pleasant pastime like fishing… Sun, water, it’s all good stuff. This makes no sense to me, Daniel.”

“That’s different – There’s no choice when we’re locked up, and we’re not doing nothing, we’re trying to leave. Sometimes it’s just takes a really long time.” Now his fingers were drumming.

“You’re doing something now. You’re fishing. And you don’t have a choice. You’re in a boat that takes two people to move, and the water is full of evil fish. It’s not like you can go anywhere.”

“Gee, thanks, Jack. Now that I know this is just like prison, it’s much more relaxing.”

When Jack finally got another one, he could tell it wasn’t one of the fish with teeth. It wasn’t even one of the spiny ones. This one was huge and gave him a real battle. There was a good possibility that the rod or the line would break before he managed to pull it in. After fighting with it for the better part of an hour, he managed to get it near the boat without breaking anything – except maybe his shoulder. 

As it broke the surface about ten feet out, they could see that it was dwarfed the other fish and covered with spines. It had a ridge of boney scales that stuck out around the neck like a stegosaurus. There were some kind of long antennas, or feelers, on its head that were whipping around. 

Daniel wasn’t just looking serious this time – he was looking seriously worried. “Jack, I think you should cut the line. If this is what I think it is-"

“Is it edible?” Jack stood to haul on the line.

“Well, yeah, a delicacy, actually, but it-” 

“Then I’m bringing it in. This is the catch of a lifetime. Look at the size of that sucker!”

“Jack! This is a bad-” He heard the sharp note in Daniel’s voice - maybe he really should cut the line.

The creature surged toward them under its own power, and launched itself at the boat. As it left the water they could see that it had taloned legs that it sunk into the side as it climbed. The antennas turned out to be flying strips of fish-razor that took chunks out of the wood where they hit. 

Jack jumped back behind the wooden bench he’d been sitting on, trying to stay out of reach of the feelers. His P-90 was stashed back there, but he couldn’t use it. All those holes in the boat would be less than ideal. He grabbed one of the long poles that was used to push the flat boat through the marsh and tried to knock the thing off the side, but its legs were sunk deeply into the wood.

Daniel backed out of range of the feelers, and leaned over the side, firing the intar repeatedly at the creature. It was slowing down, but still moving, still taking chunks out of the boat. It only took one shot to put a man down, which said a lot for the thing climbing the side.

It reached the top, hurled itself onto the deck and scuttled toward Jack, whipping the antennas out in front of it. He drove the pole down onto its back with all his strength. “Daniel, now would be a good time to kill it!”

“Trying, Jack!” Daniel to fired a volley of shots directly to its head. The creature finally stopped and collapsed to the deck. He took a deep breath and wiped his forehead with the back of his arm, the intar still in his hand. “Is it dead?”

Jack climbed back over the bench and poked their latest catch experimentally. “You shot it –what, twenty times? I’d say yes, but it didn’t even stop moving until the last couple of shots, so who knows?”

“Let’s… just leave it where it is.”

“Tempting, but I don’t want to take the chance that it will wake up while we’re not paying attention, and cut our feet off at the ankle.”

“Good point.”

They each grabbed a couple of legs, avoiding the talons and heaved it into the barrel, which was now more than full.

Jack dropped onto the bench. “Well, that was exciting. Y’know, I wondered about the size of the barrel when we got onboard. All is explained.”

Daniel lifted his eyes to the sky then back to Jack. “All that stuff that said ‘the fish can kill you’ passed you by, and you wondered about the barrel?”

“C’mon Daniel, its fishing. It’s not normal for it to be this dangerous. Sure, I’m usually a whole lot faster on the uptake, but it’s fishing, for-”

“Alien fishing. Very alien fishing.”

Jack let it go. Daniel was right. The seemingly idyllic life of the villagers, the total absence of Goa’uld, and the survey reports highlighting the lack of land predators - it had all lulled him into complacency. That was the danger of so many peaceful meet-and-greets in a row; monotony had its own risks. “So why didn’t you stop me, really? I know you, Daniel. If you were set on stopping this, you would have shouted down the rafters – and how did you know so much about what we might catch?” He stood to pick up one of the boat poles and handed the other one to Daniel.

“I know it doesn’t seem like fun to you, but when I find artifacts, or an unknown civilization, it is fun, and it’s the same for Sam when she makes a new discovery.” Daniel dug the pole into the mud and pushed the boat forward in time with Jack. “Teal’c… Well, Teal’c finds a surprising number of things amusing, but for you, there’s not a whole lot of fun. Mostly you watch us work. So when you wanted to go fishing… I just thought it would be a good idea. Sam and Teal’c agreed... It’s not like there are a lot of opportunities. I talked to the fishermen, got descriptions of what we were likely to encounter, and what we should really avoid – like that last one. I thought I could steer us clear of trouble... I guess I miscalculated, though. I wasn’t expecting you to catch anything that might pose a genuine risk – in our frame of reference, anyway.” Daniel looked up with a half smile and a frown. “Maybe that set the bar too high. You were supposed to have a good time, not almost get killed.”

They planned this, the three of them. Daniel saw him digging a hole for himself and tried to keep it from getting too deep – so he would have a good time. That was… He looked down at the water as he pushed the boat forward. “Dangerous it always fun. This kind of dangerous, anyway, not Goa’uld mother ship dangerous. This was good, Daniel.”

The frown disappeared and the half smile turned into a real one. Daniel nodded. 

“And now that I know how much you like fishing-”

Daniel’s eyebrows rose and he looked a little alarmed. “This was a one time deal, and only because the fish had really big teeth…” 

Jack grinned. “Sure, Daniel.”


End file.
